The First Issue Of Our New Lightroom Magazine Is Out!

Hey everyone. Big news today! I’m extremely happy to report that the Lightroom magazine we’ve been working so hard on over the last few months is live. Yep, an entire magazine dedicated entirely to Lightroom. It’s call (appropriately enough) Lightroom Magazine – The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom How-To Magazine. (here’s the link if you just can’t wait)

A while back we realized that Lightroom has become the go-to program for photographers. Up until now, we’ve always included a section on Lightroom in our print magazine, Photoshop User. But after seeing just how passionate people are about Lightroom, we realized it needs it’s own magazine app.

This isn’t our first magazine app though. You may have heard of Light It Magazine which is a magazine app dedicated totally to lighting. Before now, I was actually co-editor-in-chief for the magazine, along with Scott Kelby. But when we decided to do Lightroom Magazine, I realized that I wanted to be a part of it from the ground up. So my co-worker here at Kelby Media Group, RC Concepcion, has taken over my place on Light It Magazine, which let’s me concentrate my efforts on Lightroom.

I’ve gotta tell ya. When we first decided to do the magazine app, I was a little worried about how it would come across visually. Lightroom isn’t like off-camera lighting. With lighting and Light It Magazine, you can have big beautiful pictures that show off each technique since there’s really no computer screen captures to deal with. But with Lightroom you have a ton of tiny little panels and sliders and I was worried that, visually, the magazine would suffer. Well, leave it up to our kick-ass magazine layout team (Felix Nelson and Dave Korman) to totally kill it. They designed what I believe is one of the best looking magazines we’ve ever done.

Here’s a few screen captures from the magazine itself.

First, here’s the cover and Table of Contents in the first issue. (click to see them larger)

Get Organized
Next, here’s a couple of pages from my 7 Steps To Getting Organized article.

Behind The Preset
I thought presets were really important to cover here too so I created an article called “Behind the Preset”. Basically, I dissect a preset and how it was made. At the end, you can create the preset yourself or download the onces I’ve already made.

The Develop Module
Brian Matiash wrote our first article on using the Develop Module. I plan on including a Develop module based article in each issue.

Lightroom-Photoshop Before/After Video
Since Photoshop is such a HUGE part of Lightroom, I wanted to include it as well. I figured the best way to do that was a video so I included a Before/After video that takes you from unedited Raw file, to Lightroom edits, over to Photoshop, and finally back to Lightroom again. This way, you’ll see the whole process from start to finish.

HDR
I begged RC Concepcion (the HDR King) to write an article on 32-bit HDR in Lightroom.

Plug-Ins for Lightroom
I hear a ton of questions on plug-ins and how they work with Lightroom. So we’re including a plug-in article as well. In each issue we’ll look at a new plug-in each time. In this first issue, Rob Sylvan dives into onOne Software’s brand new Perfect Black & White plug-in (which has quickly become my go-to plug-in for B&W).

Printing and Books
Scott Kelby has been known for the awesome photo books he creates so I asked him if he could write an article on it. Not only did he come thru, but he wrote 2 so you’ll see more in the next issue too.

Tips and Tricks
What magazine would be complete without tips and tricks. And who better to bring them to us than Sean Duggan, the tip man himself. He definitely came through with some really cool time-saving little-known tips in Lightroom.

Featured Photographer and Inspiration
And finally, since Lightroom is about photography, we wanted to showcase a photographer and their work in each issue. I think it adds to the inspirational factor you get from looking through a magazine (especially on the iPad). This first issue features Connor Walberg. Connor is an action and architectural photographer out of Colorado, and he’s got some killer work that you won’t want to miss.

Yes, It’s Only On The iPad
The magazine is only on the iPad. And right now, there’s no plans of any other versions any time soon. So if you’re thinking of leaving a comment about why we should have it in another format, don’t (and if you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you ).

How much? Frequency? And Where To Get It?
The first issue of the magazine is free. Just use the link here to download, or search the app store for “Lightroom Magazine”. You first download the app, and once inside the app, you can download the issues of the magazine. Like I said, the first issue (Nov 2012) is free. Each issue after that is $4.99. Because of the way the App store works, we had to include an in-app purchase right away so that’s why you see two issues there. So you can immediately go and download the 2nd issue right away (well, after you pay $4.99 that is). And you can expect a new issue after that about every 6-8 weeks.

BTW… it’s got a video in it and very large screen captures (so you can zoom in and see everything without squinting), so make sure you give it a good 20-30 minutes to download.

If you’re as passionate about photographer and Lightroom as we are then I really do hope you’ll check out the first issue. And by all means, please let us know if you’ve got any ideas, topics, and writers that you’d like to see in coming issues. Thanks and have a good one!

Matt is the Vice President of Photography for onOne Software and a Tampa-based photographer. He's a best selling author of over 20 books and teaches Lightroom and Photoshop at seminars and conferences around the world.

I’d love to use the web gallery module of Lightroom, but I need a primer on web basics. Real basics. Not the Lightroom part, the web part.

I can get free web space from my ISP, or other places on the net. Now what?
What addresse do I put into Lightroom to get the page up? How do I add a second page without overwriting the first? What is FTP and why do I care?

I suppose it’s possible that I’m the only one in the country who doesn’t understand the ABC’s of web publishing, but I doubt it. How about helping us out here?

Second edition has bombed out numerous times over 4 days with “request timed out” messages. Could be because I have my iPad set with a password that clicks in after 20 minutes, but I have no choice on that – to be able to use my work email, they enforce the 20 minute timeout.

Guys you need to fix this and Matt you need to update people on the blog on what you are doing about it.

I know you warned me (us), but now I have to buy an iPad to read this magazine – c’mon get real – talk about arrogance – this takes the proverbial cake. Why not make it available in pdf format? I would guess that you would get a lot more folks buying it. I am certainly not going to buy an iPad simply to read a magazine and I have no use for one other than that. I appreciate the “Killer Tips” and look at it on a regualr basis. Are you going to move that to the iPad as well? This is just so wrong in so many ways!

Hey Matt,
I love the magazines. Couple of comments. I had both issues on my iPad and came back to it today and had to re download both. No big deal but weird.
In issue 2, in Rob Sylvans article, if you double tap the screenshots, they pop up And are crisp, but if you zoom / expand text (let’s say maybe if you use reading glasses ) the screenshots are not crisp. In your article, the ‘panelshots’ zoom fine but screenshots do not. Same in Sean’s. RC’s screenshots are fine. Totally nit-picking here -as you might, but thought I would. Let you know. Good to see you out West w/ Bill’s group.
Brian Stefl

Looks great. Currently downloading first issue. Takes really long time – which might be due to server overload.
My question so far is: Why did’t you make it an “real” iPad magazine app instead of a standalone app. I would expect this magazine beside all my other magazines inside iPad’s newsstand.

Nice looking magazine, but the navigation is driving me nuts! Half the time when I try to swipe to the next page I accidentally jump to somewhere else in the magazine. Tapping the page to bring up the menu and page slider sometimes triggers another jump! I’m used to iPad magazine apps, so it’s not like I don’t know how the navigation works. It’s just that I haven’t encountered one this “jumpy.”

The help needs expanding. What are all the page layout options, what does snap page do, and what does the zoom setting do? Also, why is there a grey arrow in the bottom left corner (which appears to take me back a page), but not a corresponding arrow in the bottom right corner?

I don’t get all the format comments. It is available on iPad. If that doesn’t work for you, then you will not be able to get it. In today world, the number of available formats is extensive, and not eventhing works for everyone. Sorry for the rant, but it is what it is.

@Matt: bummer. I like how Light It is in the newsstand. And based on what I’ve seen in the first issue, I’d buy a subscription rather than one at a time in-app purchases.
Especially if you all add more and more advanced LR tips and concepts.

Although I own an iPad, I have to agree with others who say that an alternative format (like PDF) would reach a wider audience. As it is, you’re leaving a lot of people in the dark with such a proprietary format.